Winner of the 2024 Manuscript Poetry Competition
Winner of the 2024 Manuscript Poetry Competition Read More »
News
Kit wins Newcastle Poetry Prize
The Flying Islands Poetry Community president and Flying Islands Pocket Poets Series editor has won the coveted Newcastle University Newcastle Poetry Prize with his poem ‘Dombóvár’
From the judges’ report:
“The winning poem, ‘Dombovar’ by Kit Kelen, ranked very high on both our original lists and grew in stature with successive rereads. ‘Dombovar’ skilfully integrates thoughtful reflection on important issues, humour, inventiveness and an engaging partly colloquial tone. This evocation of small town rural Hungary carries echoes of the moral ambiguities and violence of settler societies like Australia.
Throughout the poem there is the suggestion of a larger, potentially national, narrative, but the reader is left to work through the weave themselves. Sudden transitions between dogs and humans and intertextual asides about fences and neighbours add to the poem’s humour. There is also a strong undertone of sadness as the poet subtly creates a self- portrait. With great skill the poem breaks standard idioms and expected word choices to produce a clipped, very tight effect that intensifies the reader’s experience. ‘Dombovar’ uses the form of a poem sequence to powerful effect, shaping a masterful poem that can be read on multiple levels.”
Kit wins Newcastle Poetry Prize Read More »
Donations to Flying Islands Poetry Community Gift Fund are Tax Deductible
We are happy to announce that donations to the Flying Islands Poetry Community Gift Fund are now Tax Deductible.
This was following a successful application to the Australian Taxation Office for Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) Endorsement
The Flying Islands Poetry Community Gift Fund is a separately administered fund within Flying Islands Poetry Community Inc. Funds are made available from the Gift Fund to the Flying Islands Poetry Community for the purposes of promoting literature, including, in particular, but not exclusively, poetry and visual arts related to literature in Australia.
One of the main activities of the Flying Islands Poetry Community is the annual publication of the Flying Islands Pocket Poet Series of poetry books. Donations are an important part of the continued publication of these series.
Donations can be made using the link below by debit or credit card, or by direct deposit/EFT. The bank details for the Flying Islands Poetry Community Gift Fund are:
Bank: Teachers’ Mutual Bank Account Name: Flying Islands Gift Fund BSB 812 170 Account Number: 84139
Please transfer or deposit the funds at your earliest convenance A tax receipt will be issued shortly after the funds are received.
Donations to Flying Islands Poetry Community Gift Fund are Tax Deductible Read More »
2024 Manuscript Competition – Longlisted Poets
Congratulations to the following poets who have made the long list of poets for the 2024 Manuscript Competition. Thank you to all the competition participants. Keep expressing yourself through poetry.
Ali Taghvai, On the Boat of Life
Ashleigh Synnott, The Technology I Assume
C. J. Anderson-Wu, Clear My Name
Damien Becker, Thin Reed Throat
Himara Jay, The Feminine Demons
Jason Beale, Strange Signs of Life
Kay Cairns, Looking for the River
Lorraine Gibson, Some Things Change Some Stay the Same
Lyn Chatham, The Arts
MaryAnn Maxted, Slipstream
Michael Cunliffe, The Chronicle of the Rodent Warrior
Nicola Watson, Treechanging
Peter Kenneally, Make it Exemplary
Peter Mitchell, Under Skies with no Obligations
Robyn Lance, Silvers of Fish Flash Silver
Terry Manion, Survival, Recovery, Repercussion, Context, Perspective, Live Through, Learn, Understand
Tracie Lark, In Quiet Winds We Settle
Troy Walsh, An Iconoclastic Explosion
Yvonne Patterson, Lineage: Fault Lines
2024 Manuscript Competition – Longlisted Poets Read More »
Flying Islands Now on eBay
Some supporters have indicated they prefer to shop on eBay. We applied for and received the registered charity concession rate on eBay. So we have been progressively adding the Flying Islands Pocket Poets Series catalogue to eBay. The number of series added so far is from 2011 to 2019.
It will be the same volunteer team filling orders.
You can find the Flying Islands Catalogue on eBay at www.ebay.com.au/usr/flying-islands-pocket-poets
Flying Islands Now on eBay Read More »
Haunting & Laughter – Professor Kit Kelen’s One Year Flying Islands Poetry Manuscript Workshop
- running from January to December 2024
- minimum of six participants
- maximum of twelve participants
- $500 flat fee (GST free)
- (possibility of a scholarship for a poet of demonstrably limited means, letters of support may be provided for successful applicants wishing to apply to a funding body.)
- certificate on successful completion and transcript available
The workshop is to be conducted:
- online (e-mail, ZOOM, and we may use our own Learning Management System on the Flying Islands website)
- on the phone
- with the possibility of a residential aspect (depending on the location of participants;
- any residential component would likely be conducted in Sydney, Newcastle or Markwell.)
This is a practical workshop that will include:
- regular writing stimuli/readings/exercises
- engagement with a range of forms and styles of poetry from a variety of periods and cultures
- feedback and other forms of response
- individual as well as group discussion
- regular guest poet sessions by ZOOM included throughout the year
- an invitation to daily practice, specifically to write poetry, in conversation with Kit, potentially every day throughout the workshop.
The focus of the workshop will be on the production of book-length collections of poetry by participants.
The theme ‘haunting and laughter’ is not intended as in any way prescriptive or restrictive but rather as a means of suggesting a range of possible engagements with poetry.
Who can apply?
Poets of all levels of experience are encouraged to apply.
Poets not native to the English language are encouraged to apply. (Translation and working between languages can be one of our themes.)
Participation in the workshop is not limited to poets resident in Australia, although the residential potential will probably be enhanced for those who are. Likewise, being in a similar time zone might be helpful.
How to apply
Those wishing to apply to participate in the workshop should send a ten page sample of their poetry, along with a biographical note and/or cv. This sample of work may (or may not be) accompanied by a descriptive synopsis of the idea for a book of poems. These materials should be sent as an e-mail attachment, in a single word file, the name of which will include the author’s name and ‘application
for FI 2024 workshop’. This file should be sent, with a covering note to KitKelen@emeritus.um.edu.mo.
Deadline for applications is Sunday 1 st October, 2023. Successful applicants will be informed in November, 2023. No correspondence will be entertained with regard to unsuccessful applications.
Proceeds
All proceeds from the conduct of the workshop are to fund the Flying Islands Poetry Community’s publication of poetry books. No one gets paid for this.
Caveats
There is no guaranteed prospect of publication associated with participation in the workshop. Acceptance or rejection of an application for the workshop does not imply any qualitative judgement, but is rather based on an assessment of whether a particular poet is likely to benefit from participation.
About Your Workshop Leader – Christopher (Kit) Kelen, FRSN Emeritus Professor of English (University of Macau)
Christopher (Kit) Kelen is a poet and painter, resident in the Myall Lakes of NSW. Published widely since the seventies, he has more than a dozen full length collections in English as well as translated books of poetry in Chinese (several), Portuguese (several), French, Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, Swedish, Norwegian, Filipino, in Greek – his bilingual (Greek and English) volume a postcard from the fires, a picture of the rains, published by Kaleidoscope in Athens, in 2022. Also in 2022, his bilingual Esperanto-English volume Rompitaj Labirintoj – Bung Mazes was published by the Australian Esperanto Association, to coincide with a painting exhibition of that title held at the Shop Gallery in Sydney. A large scale collection of Kit’s – Swimming in the Storm – has just appeared in Romanian, with launches planned for Romania in early 2023. Kit’s latest volume of poetry in English is Book of Mother, published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2022.
An Anne Elder and ABC/ Bicentennial Award winner in the distant past, in 2017, Kit was shortlisted twice for the Montreal Poetry Prize and won the Local Award in the Newcastle Poetry Prize. In 2019 and 2020 Kit won the Hunter Writers’ Centre award in the NPP. He was also shortlisted for the ACU prize in 2020. In 2021 he won the bronze medal in the Newcastle Poetry Prize. And in 2022 he won the second prize silver medal.
Kit has been writer/artist in Residence in many parts of the world – in Australia, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Iceland, Finland and Cyprus. A number of these residencies have led to book publications, sometimes multiple – for instance Bundanon time produced his books Time with the Sky and To the Single Man’s Hut. Time at the Messen residency on the Hardanger Fjord produced Poor Man’s Coat and a book in Norwegian entitled Glasfjorden (the glass fjord).
As a visual artist, over the last fifteen years, Kit has has had ten solo painting and drawing exhibitions in Australia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Macao.
Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Macau, where he taught for many years, Kit Kelen is also a Conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle.
In his scholarly writing, Kit has produced a string of books about poetry, the most recent of which is Poetics and Ethics of Anthropomorphism – Children, animals and poetry, published by Routledge in 2022.
In 2017, Kit was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Malmo, in Sweden.
Series Editor for Flying Islands Pocket Poets Series, Kit has mentored many poets and translators from various parts of the world, and run a number of on-line communities of practice in poetry (most notably Project 366 [from 2016-2020]). Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW. You can follow Kit’s work-in-progress at the Daily Kit – thedailykitkelen.blogspot.com/
Vale Jill Eileen McKeowen
09/12/1959 — 25/04/2022 62 wonderful years
It is with sadness that we advise of the passing of Jill McKeowen, one of Flying Islands Poetry Community’s new pocket poets. She succumbed to cancer that she only learned of relatively recently. Her funeral was held on 5 May 2022 at the Pettigrew Funeral Directors’ Chapel Mayfield West NSW.
Jill was an established Newcastle based poet.
Vale Jill Eileen McKeowen Read More »
Tax-deductible donations to support Flying Islands Poetry Community
Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Australian Cultural Fund (the ACF) to support the Flying Islands Poetry Community. Your tax-deductible donations made through ACF are paid in full to Flying Islands as monthly grants/disbursements to support the ongoing publication of the Flying Islands Pocket Poets series of poetry books.
Tax-deductible donations can be made at the ACF website using debit/credit cards, electronic funds transfer (EFT), direct deposit or PayPal. 100% of your donation will be passed on to Flying Islands Poetry Community as a grant/disbursement on a monthly basis.
Our donation target for 2022 is $2,675
Tax-deductible donations to support Flying Islands Poetry Community Read More »
a big thank you !
dear islanders and fellow travellers
thanks to all for your efforts towards the Flying Islands book launch and the benefit exhibition in Sydney last weekend …(Saturday 12 February 2022).
while the final figures are not quite in yet, it looks like we will slightly surpass last year’s exhibition and launch take … which means we’re well on the way to being able to afford this year’s publishing program.
But the main thing – and the more important thing – is that your hard work has brought glory on the islands and all who fly with them.
…this event has spread the word about us… and has brought the pleasures of our poetry to many old and new faces.
I know that it really was a marathon effort for many involved — and especially for Anna, for Sarah and Dylan, for Maggie, for Richard, for Angie, for Carol…
special thanks to them and to all who made this very complicated event a success!
Please do pass our thanks on to others who helped and who were there, physically or virtually.
I hope everyone is having a well-earned rest and poetry de-tox now !
the islands thank and bless you all
long may the islands fly!
with best wishes to all
Kit Kelen
President
Flying Islands Poetry Community
Flying Islands Book Launch and Benefit Show Saturday 12 February 2022 at 2pm (AEDT)
Invitation to the Flying Islands Book Launch and Benefit Show Saturday 12 February at 2pm (AEDT) of the 2021 Flying Islands Pocket Poetry Books by Morgan Bell, Anna Couani, Laurie Duggan, Daniel Ionita, Alan Jefferies, Brian Purcell, Jane Skelton and Sarah St Vincent Welch.
Order of Launches
Zoom Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84922619689
1:30 pm Click the zoom link to join the virtual waiting room and be let in by Magdalena Ball, your Zoom host. Settle in while everyone arrives and have a chat. We recommend joining before 2 pm in case you have any technical glitches.
2 pm Richard James Allen MC welcome from The Shop Gallery. Kit Kelen update on Flying Islands Poetry Community.
2:10 pm Launches
- Ursula Dubosarsky launches Sarah St Vincent Welch’s chalk borders
- Virginia Shepherd launches Anna Couani’s local
- Jean Kent launches Daniel Ionita’s Short Bursts of Eternity
- Martin Langford launches Brian Purcell’s The Leaving
Short break in which to view the benefit art exhibition online, have a stretch and an online chat and buy books and art
3:15 pm Launches
- Annee Lawrence launches Jane Skelton’s What the river told me
- Greg McLaren launches Laurie Duggan’s A Kite Hangs above the Border
- Magdalena Ball launches Morgan Bell’s Pretend I Don’t Exist.
- Kerri Shying launches Alan Jefferies in the same breath
More about the Launch
We will post the Zoom link on our The Shop Gallery Facebook Event, Flying Islands website, Flying Islands Facebook Pages and Blog and Instagram on the morning of the book launch Saturday 12 February 2022 if you are looking for the link on that day.
The book launch is an event on Zoom and in The Shop Gallery, joining the virtual audiences of readers and launchers in a hybrid event with those who can be in The Shop Gallery together. Friends from far and wide can join in via zoom. There is a limit of 25 people at any one time in the gallery due to COVID.
Come and enjoy the benefit exhibition 11-6pm 10-16 February 2022 at The Shop Gallery 112 Glebe Point Road Glebe if you are in Sydney. All proceeds go to Flying Island Books. You can also view the exhibition during the break between sets, at the launch, if you are attending via Zoom..
On 12 February there will be other festivities in Glebe with the Summer Streets ‘day of street-side eating and drinking events. Glebe Point Road will be closed to traffic from 11 am between Parramatta Road and St Johns Road. The Summer Streets events are being held to help support local businesses and to provide more outdoor entertainment for residents.’ There will be music and roving performers.
COVID safe plans are in place in The Shop Gallery and Summer Streets program.
See you on zoom at the launch!
Flying Islands Book Launch and Benefit Show Saturday 12 February 2022 at 2pm (AEDT) Read More »